A Delaware county Mother wants answers. She says her daughter came home from school with bruises. Maria Tukora of Brookhaven says she discovered the bruises on her 13-year-old daughter who has special needs.
Tukora says, “I was changing her diaper and I noticed some bruises above her left knee and then I checked her whole body and I found more bruises on her left arm like fingerprints.“ Maria’s daughter, Alina is nonverbal and has trouble communicating. Maria did get a note from Alina’s teachers saying they noticed the bruises that morning.
So Maria says she went to Alina’s class run by the Delaware county Intermediate Unit to try to find out more about the bruises.
She says she also went to the Penn Delco School District’s transportation dept. to see if there was anything on the School Bus’ video camera to let her see what happened to Alina. Maria says she was surprised to learn that the tape was blank. An attorney for the Penn Delco School district says the camera on the bus had been accidentally disconnected and didn’t record.
Dave Frankel is an attorney who has represented a number of children with special needs in court cases. When the NBC10 investigators told Frankel about the camera not recording he said, “that’s a problem. It’s either a problem because there was a mistake, in which case they need to explore what happened, why that happened, how long had the camera not been working, why wasn’t the camera not working, why wasn’t it monitored, why wasn’t it fixed.”
Maria has since filed a police report. The NBC10 Investigators checked with police and found out the Delaware County District Attorney’s office is now investigating Maria’s complaint.
In a statement Michael Puppio, an attorney for the Penn Delco School district and for the Delaware County Transportation Department said: “The safety and security of students is the primary concern of both the Penn-Delco School District and the Delaware County Intermediate Unit. Neither entity has been contacted by any law enforcement agency but both will fully and immediately cooperate if requested.”
The Intermediate Unit says when a school nurse saw the bruises two days later they thought one of the bruises was old and contacted the county’s Children youth Services.
